• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

Status
Not open for further replies.
No new Higgs bosons are created or destroyed.

This is simply false. The Higgs particle is its own anti-particle, so it can be created in pairs (if you've got the required energy) and destroyed in pairs rather easily. The number of Higgs particles is not a conserved quantity.
 
No, it's like asking how many water molecules exist in the liquid water state, and how many of them remain frozen, but still remain in the same container. The number of the molecules or particles never changes, they just have an excitation state and a lower energy state. Period.

Which makes them completely unlike the Higgs.
me said:
by the way, here's an excellent way to see that the Higgs condensate is not composed of some fixed number density of Higgs particles. Imagine starting in the uncondensed phase (for example, in the early universe when the temperature T was very high). When T is large there will be a thermal population of excitations of the Higgs field around the uncondensed phase, along with particles of every particle species. Now gradually lower the temperature. When you hit a certain critical T, a second order phase transition will take place and the condensate will suddenly and spontaneously form. Right at that temperature the excitations of the Higgs are massless, and there will be a very large number of very low energy excitations, and the correlation length goes to infinity. If you continue to cool, a burst of energy will be released as the condensate forms, most of which will go into creating a bunch of other particles.

On the other hand you could also start at zero temperature with the Higgs field uncondensed and homogeneous. This time there are zero Higgs excitations in the initial state, but nevertheless the field will immediately and spontaneously condense, releasing energy into various other particles.

In neither case is the energy density of the final condensate related in any way to the number density of Higgs field excitations present either before or after the transition.

No new Higgs bosons are created or destroyed. The density is not affected by their change of state! You guys are missing the key issue here. No new particles are being created, and therefore any increase in volume simply equates to a decrease in density per volume unit.

Wow!!! News flash - the LHC will not produce any Higgs particles, because the number is strictly conserved!!! The standard model of particle physics is all wrong!
 
Last edited:
I don't recall anyone saying it was increasing. But it could, depending on circumstances, because Higgs particles can be created an annihilated, just like photons.

Your quote does not support your claim. All it says is that the total number of these Higgs particles remains constant and only the energy state has changed. It says nothing about them being created or destroyed.

You may believe they can be created and destroyed, but that would be another of those "faith based" beliefs that you cannot empirically demonstrate. We aren't even sure they exist at all, so it is absolutely impossible to support the statement that they can be created and destroyed.

The original claim was that a Higgs condensate would retain constant density over multiple exponential increases in volume, like inflation. That has been shown to be completely false and the density does not change one iota due to the change in excitation state.

Inflation therefore remains "supernatural" in the sense that it is absolutely unlike any other known vector or scalar field in nature. Higgs condensates are not capable of this feat of magic, even based strictly on particle physic theory. The claim was false and the half-assed, half documented math he provided was irrelevant to his claim.
 
Last edited:
Wow!!! News flash - the LHC will not produce any Higgs particles, because the number is strictly conserved!!! The standard model of particle physics is all wrong!

Where did I make that claim is that just another of those strawman army techniques that you guys have become famous for?
 
This is simply false. The Higgs particle is its own anti-particle, so it can be created in pairs (if you've got the required energy) and destroyed in pairs rather easily. The number of Higgs particles is not a conserved quantity.

The higher energy state can change to a lower energy state, but the total number of them does not change. Your quote has nothing whatsoever to do with them being "created" or "destroyed". They simply change energy states!

As for the Higgs having antiparticles and being created and destroyed, this is pure speculation. We haven't even positively identified a Higgs in a controlled experiment, let alone it's anti-particle.
 
The original claim was that a Higgs condensate would retain constant density over multiple exponential increases in volume, like inflation. That has been shown to be completely false and the density does not change one iota due to the change in excitation state.

:dl:

OK, enough troll-squelching for the day - I'm done.
 
:dl:

OK, enough troll-squelching for the day - I'm done.

I have no idea what you're laughing about since your claim was thoroughly debunked. The energy state has no influence on the density so increasing the volume is simply going to result in a decrease in density like any particle condensate. That leaves your magical "inflation" thingy as the only "supernatural" field being postulated around here.
 
Your quote does not support your claim. All it says is that the total number of these Higgs particles remains constant and only the energy state has changed.

It says nothing of the sort. The particles are excitations of the field, not the field itself. Just like electromagnetic fields and photons: photons are excitations of the field. How many photons make up the electric field of an electron? How many electrons are in the magnetic field of an MRI machine? It's a nonsensical question. And the number of photons is NOT conserved, just like the number of Higgs particles is not conserved.

You may believe they can be created and destroyed, but that would be another of those "faith based" beliefs that you cannot empirically demonstrate.

It hasn't been demonstrated yet, because we haven't gotten to high enough energies. If the theory is correct, such particles can indeed be created and destroyed, just like every other particle we know of. Your ignorance is stunning.

We aren't even sure they exist at all, so it is absolutely impossible to support the statement that they can be created and destroyed.

Not so. The Higgs particle is defined by its predicted properties, which includes the property that it can be created and destroyed. If we find a particle without this property, it is not a Higgs particle. It would be something else, and something rather remarkable, since every particle we have found can be created and destroyed.

The original claim was that a Higgs condensate would retain constant density over multiple exponential increases in volume, like inflation. That has been shown to be completely false

No, it hasn't, because you're still confusing the Higgs particle with the Higgs field.
 
I'll repeat:

• The Lambda-CDM model exactly matches the following data:
o the CMB power spectrum;
o all CMB polarization spectra and bispectra;
o all known CMB non-Gaussianity tests;
o the distribution of galaxy cluster sizes (and its time evolution),
o velocity dispersions,
o x-ray virial temperatures,
o weak lensing masses,
o and strong lensing masses;
o the rotation-curve evidence for dark matter in galaxies;
o the Hubble constant and its time evolution;
o the lyman-Alpha forest angular size spectrum;
o the ratio of H/D/He/Li in unevolved gas clouds;
o the Gunn-Peterson trough in quasar spectra.

So how many can MM explain?
 
Yes, I understand this point, which is why I'm not impressed with inflation only because it's "popular" right now. It wasn't popular when I was 15.
You seem to be the only one that thinks its only because its popular that people take it seriously.

Point number one is why I'm not impressed much by appeals to popularity fallacies.
Wow. Wow. And more wow. You just posted an appeal via a list of people who agree with you regarding cosmology and then say
Point number one is why I'm not impressed much by appeals to popularity fallacies.
. Absolutely and completely staggering beyond belief. Why post an appeal to popularity if you're not impressed by such a fallacy?

Dead people can tell us something about science.
The work of dead people from when they're alive can be useful. The opinion of dead people is less useful.

That could be simply a trap of ego for all I know unless of course you can empirically demonstrate your claim.
I don't really care whether you believe me or not. Its fairly obvious from the list that many on it are by no means experts on cosmology though.

Um, you're the one tying to peddle a superluminal creation event around here, not me.
Nope. I don't really understand what you're talking about. Maybe its another one of your misunderstandings of GR (which is fair enough, I'm no expert). But... Relativity limits travel through space to the speed of light. It sets no limits on the speed of the expansion of space. Has your confusion been solved yet? If so please say so and we can leave it at that, safe in the knowledge you've learnt something. If not, please elaborate.

Sure, why not. I talk to astronomers every single day and they are the single biggest proponents of a creation event that I am aware of. Their creation event is just as unsupportable by known laws of physics as any other creation event. It's "timeline" is just as dependent upon things that have not been empirically demonstrated.
Er, now you're contradicting yourself (though you probably don't realise it). If the Universe is expanding then it must have been hotter and denser in the past... hence BBT. If the universe is stationary then there must be something stopping it from contracting under its own gravity. This is why Einstein introduced a cosmological constant. He retracted it later because:
a) It would put the universe in an unstable equilibrium. Ie any slight perturbation would cause the Universe to collapse or expand at an accelerating rate.
b) Observations indicated the Universe is expanding.

Now, there's only really four solutions I can see to this hole you've dug yourself into:
a) Accept the idea of an expanding Universe.
b) Accept the idea of a cosmological constant (though you've still got a problem with the perturbations).
c) Reject GR.
d) Admit you have no clue.

You guys better look in the mirror before you start accusing me of creationism. I assure you that I'm quite comfortable with an infinite and eternal universe and I absolutely no need of any creation stories. If this physical universe had a creation date, great. If not, oh well. I'm not attached one way or the other. What I won't do is buy into any creation story that requires "faith" in the physically unsupportable theories, and your creation event is no better than any other in my book because it's based on not one, but *several* things you cannot empirically demonstrate to exist outside of your imagination.
Not faith, just GR and a few astronomical observations.
And I never accused you of creationism. I merely accused you of arguing like a creationist. Please stop with the strawmen.
 
Let's start with a little lesson in real physics.......

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/11353



The condensate is simply a collection of Higgs particles gentlemen. That's your basic problem in a nutshell. Matter and energy are the same thing, and the condensate has a specific amount of mass and energy that depends on the number of Higgs in the condensate. You can't just make up new Higgs particles out of thin air without violating the conservation of energy laws! Come on.


Funny you seem to be willing to accept the possibility of the Higgs boson, so far only theoretically proposed by “nifty math” and not yet empirically verifiable. Be careful you may find the Higgs condensate to be just a collection of those inflationary farting faeries.



Now if you wanted to question if the phase transition of the Higgs condensate might not result in the conditions needed for inflation, this might be the way to do it (for those who do not consider some news article to be a physics lesson)

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1985PhRvD..31..273M
 
Last edited:
It says nothing of the sort. The particles are excitations of the field, not the field itself. Just like electromagnetic fields and photons: photons are excitations of the field.

The quote you cited does not support your statement. More importantly your EM/photon example is inapplicable because in the case of the Higgs condensate, the condensate is in fact a collection of individual Higgs particles which simply change energy states up and down. They aren't magic particles.

It hasn't been demonstrated yet, because we haven't gotten to high enough energies. If the theory is correct, such particles can indeed be created and destroyed, just like every other particle we know of. Your ignorance is stunning.

What is "stunning" from my perspective is your "leap of faith" at almost every single turn in the complete absence of physical evidence to support your assertions. The individual particles of the Higgs condensate can change energy states, but unless you intend to *create more particles* and put them into the condensate, you can't increase the volume and not also decrease the density of Higgs particles in the condensate. It can't happen. Since you can't demonstrate that *anything* can actually "create" a Higgs, you're expecting me to just "take this claim on faith" again and we're back to square one.

No, it hasn't, because you're still confusing the Higgs particle with the Higgs field.

No. Originally we were talking about the density of a Higgs "condensate" and such condensates are indeed composed of Higgs particles unlike the claim that was made. Higgs particles in a condensate will not retain constant density over exponential increases in volume. Period. The rest of this debate is silly IMO because all it demonstrates to me is that while this crowd probably understands math very well, this group has a complete lack of understanding when it comes to actual empirical physics and even theoretical physics. Condensates are simply aligned groups of particles. The Higgs condensate is simply a collection of Higgs particles, nothing more, nothing less. If you increase the volume and add no more particles to the condensate, then it will absolutely have a lower density per volume unit than before you increased the volume. A Higgs condensate is not a magic "free energy machine", it's simply a collection of particles with a given energy state and density, not unlike a Bose-Einstein condensate. The density of the condensate is simply determined by the total number of particles divided by the volume, just like every other "condensate". It's not magic!

Not so. The Higgs particle is defined by its predicted properties, which includes the property that it can be created and destroyed.

Assuming this is all true, you would actually have demonstrate a creation process for Higgs particles in the condensate *before* I would just accept your claim at face value. You can't just claim "Inflation causes Higgs bosons to be created" without some demonstration of concept.

The Higgs condensate is simply a collection of Higgs particles. It has no density defying "properties' of any sort.
 
Funny you seem to be willing to accept the possibility of the Higgs boson, so far only theoretically proposed by “nifty math” and not yet empirically verifiable.

It's the only remaining particle to be verified in a lab and there is a multibillion dollar piece of gear that has been built to find it already. Got a legitimate "experiment" involving inflation?

Be careful you may find the Higgs condensate to be just a collection of those inflationary farting faeries.

I'll be happy to give the LHC folks a few years to test their equipment and get it working properly and let them run a few "tests" before I make up my mind. Unlike you however I am prepared to accept that they may not exist after all. I have no idea where that would leave us as it relates to particle physics theory, but I have every reason to believe there is a way to physically test this idea since folks have been building equipment with that express idea in mind.

Let's compare and contrast that now with inflation where *no Earthbound experiments" are being done.

Now if you wanted to question if the phase transition of the Higgs condensate might not result in the conditions needed for inflation, this might be the way to do it (for those who do not consider some news article to be a physics lesson)

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1985PhRvD..31..273M

It's the fact you keep claiming it "might be" and can't claim "it has been demonstrated" that is the problem here. If you *could* demonstrate this in controlled conditions, there would be no point in being skeptical of the idea. Since you can't do that, all I can say is "Nice math, now where's the physics to back it up?"
 
You seem to be the only one that thinks its only because its popular that people take it seriously.

It has certainly not been demonstrated empirically and not one single useful product uses or requires the use of inflation. It's hard to take seriously if you are skeptical of the idea because it's no better than numerology at actually "predicting" events on Earth.

Wow. Wow. And more wow. You just posted an appeal via a list of people who agree with you regarding cosmology and then say . Absolutely and completely staggering beyond belief. Why post an appeal to popularity if you're not impressed by such a fallacy?

I don't "lack belief" in your inflation faeries because other people lack belief in them. I lack belief in them because you cannot physically demonstrate that they are anything other than a figment of Guth's imagination. Big difference. Why do you believe inflation exists? Please don't tell me it's because of the redshift phenomenon because I can explain that with a simple EM field thanks to Ari's work. In an Occum's razor scenario, EM fields win hands down.

I don't really care whether you believe me or not. Its fairly obvious from the list that many on it are by no means experts on cosmology though.

I'm sure it's also very obvious to a numerologist that there are critics out there of numerology that are by no means an expert on numerology. So what? The thing inflation proponents share in common with numerologists is that they can't demonstrate their claims in controlled experimentation. In addition, no 'expert' on inflation seems to be able to "predict" the outcome of any controlled experiment here on Earth as the result of their "expertise" on this subject, so it's all useless number shuffling as far as I know.

Nope. I don't really understand what you're talking about. Maybe its another one of your misunderstandings of GR (which is fair enough, I'm no expert). But... Relativity limits travel through space to the speed of light. It sets no limits on the speed of the expansion of space.

But you never showed that "space" can or ever has "expanded". That's another of those dogma things related to *subjective* redshift "interpretation"", not controlled experimentation. Einstein rejected GR with constants and Lambda-CMD theorists stuffed them in there anyway.

Has your confusion been solved yet? If so please say so and we can leave it at that, safe in the knowledge you've learnt something. If not, please elaborate.

Thus far what I have learned is that none of the proponents of inflation can empirically demonstrate their claim as I already knew, and people get ticked of when their belief systems are scrutinized and found to be wanting.

b) Observations indicated the Universe is expanding.

No. Redshift observations have been *interpreted* to be related to "space expansion", one of those things that astronomers cannot demonstrate here on Earth. Its amazing how many of their fudge factors must be accepted on faith, and in the absence of a proof of concept here on Earth.

Not faith, just GR and a few astronomical observations.
And I never accused you of creationism. I merely accused you of arguing like a creationist. Please stop with the strawmen.
Let's just be clear that I don't care if the universe was created or not, if it has a creation date or not, or if it is simply eternal and infinite. I don't care.

It is only the mainstream that *insists* that there was a "creation event" and that they have the day figured out down to about 100K years. These are *extraordinary* claims that I cannot and would not make. I expect 'extraordinary' evidence to support that claim, not a simple "interpretation' based on an uncontrolled observation.
 
What is "stunning" from my perspective is your "leap of faith" at almost every single turn in the complete absence of physical evidence to support your assertions. The individual particles of the Higgs condensate can change energy states, but unless you intend to *create more particles* and put them into the condensate, you can't increase the volume and not also decrease the density of Higgs particles in the condensate. It can't happen. Since you can't demonstrate that *anything* can actually "create" a Higgs, you're expecting me to just "take this claim on faith" again and we're back to square one.

You're still stuck on the idea that there's some fixed number of Higgs particles, and you construct the condensate by stuffing a bunch of them together. But that's simply not the case. Yes, I know your link made it sound that way, but that was a gross simplification which is actually wrong.

Let's consider the electric field of a point charge. We can describe it as a function E(x). If we take the Fourier transform of this, we can decompose this function into sine waves. But sine wave electric fields are photons, so the electric field of a point charge is really just a collection of photons.

Except it isn't. If you take the photon number operator (the thing that tells you how many photons you have) and try to apply it to your electric field, you'll find out that the number of photons is indeterminate. You do not, in fact, have a fixed number of photons that you can add together to get this field. You can talk about electric fields as if they're made up of photons, you can even talk about electrostatic repulsion in terms of the exchange of virtual particles, and yet, the electric field of a static charge is not made up of some fixed number of photons. The field and excitations of the field are not the same thing.

Same thing with the Higgs field. When describing how it interacts with other particles, some physicists like to talk about it as if you can decompose it into a collection of individual particles, but that's not really correct. Your reliance on basically one line from a source that's dumbing down the theory for a general audience is not exactly convincing people who know more about what's going on than that target audience.

Condensates are simply aligned groups of particles.

Once again, you fail to grasp that there are in fact different kinds of condensates. As my earlier link already pointed out. You cannot use them interchangeably.

The Higgs condensate is simply a collection of Higgs particles, nothing more, nothing less.

No. The Higgs condensate is the vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field. And just like electric fields vs. photons, the field and the particle are not the same thing.

A Higgs condensate is not a magic "free energy machine"

Nobody ever claimed it was.

Assuming this is all true, you would actually have demonstrate a creation process for Higgs particles in the condensate *before* I would just accept your claim at face value.

It will probably be a few years before we will have solid evidence that we've created any Higgs bosons. But I already know you are wrong. And I know you're wrong because you clearly don't understand the theory. Whether or not the theory is correct (it may not be), your statements about the theory are unambiguously wrong.

You can't just claim "Inflation causes Higgs bosons to be created" without some demonstration of concept.

Inflation doesn't create Higgs bosons.

It has no density defying "properties' of any sort.

"Defining", not "defying". And yes, it most certainly does have defining properties. If we find a particle which doesn't have those properties, then it does not match the theory, it is not a Higgs particle, and we must find a different name for it. Same goes for the Higgs field.
 
It's the only remaining particle to be verified in a lab and there is a multibillion dollar piece of gear that has been built to find it already. Got a legitimate "experiment" involving inflation?

How about that “experiment”, or did you miss the whole connection between inflation and the Higgs field?


I'll be happy to give the LHC folks a few years to test their equipment and get it working properly and let them run a few "tests" before I make up my mind. Unlike you however I am prepared to accept that they may not exist after all. I have no idea where that would leave us as it relates to particle physics theory, but I have every reason to believe there is a way to physically test this idea since folks have been building equipment with that express idea in mind.

Let's compare and contrast that now with inflation where *no Earthbound experiments" are being done.

Well I’m sure they are grateful for the time you will be ‘giving’ them just as I’m sure they will be waiting for you to make up your mind. When did I ever say that the Higgs boson must exist?


It's the fact you keep claiming it "might be" and can't claim "it has been demonstrated" that is the problem here. If you *could* demonstrate this in controlled conditions, there would be no point in being skeptical of the idea. Since you can't do that, all I can say is "Nice math, now where's the physics to back it up?"

Wait first you claim I have made up my mind, now you make a point of me specifically asserting the lack of certainty (which any skeptic should). You do seem to have demonstrative problem making up your mind and simply not contradicting your own assertions.
 
No. Redshift observations have been *interpreted* to be related to "space expansion", one of those things that astronomers cannot demonstrate here on Earth.

You accept an apple falling as sufficient physical evidence that space could be curved (despite no measurement of curved space), yet you don't accept astronomical red shifts as indicating that galaxies are moving away from each other at rates proportional to their distance, even though we CAN measure doppler shifts and even Lorentz time dilation right here on earth.

Forget space expanding: red shifts show that everything is moving away from everything else, which means that going backwards in time, everything moves towards everything else. Guess what the limit of that process is.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom